I think that news stations and even the world needs to face up to the FACT that cloud computing isn’t yet to come but that it is already here. Here is something very simple to prove that. If you buy a new computer and it is not able to connect to the internet then in all essence you would say it is broken or in complete and just look for something else.

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Yeah. That’s right. Songbird is finally out of beta and is now on version 1.0! After using it for near enough a year now, possibly the best music player in the whole world is out of beta and I can post a full run down of the features.

Now as the college DJ I have an enormous music library as you would expect. Well no other player I have used has ever handled my music quite so beautifully. Ever! So for those of you who are still using some outdated, inflexable and featureless player like MS Media Player, here is what you are missing out on.

Songbird is an opensource, highly customizable music player that is constantly under development. This means that as soon as there is a cool new feature that could be used, a performance upgrade possible or some other kind of update that could possibly happen, you get it, automatically, as soon as it is safe and stable. No more waiting for MS to get off their arse and release a new version of MS Media Player in a year or two.

Not only does Songbird get updates when there are possible new features but it is free and more importantly, it allows you to browse the web at the same time! Even better is that, should you visit a website that has music on it for download, Songbird will find it and allow you to download it straight into your library and or play it from the site!Songbird uses GStreamer as its main media playback system giving it higher performance, better reliability, and a platform for much more media-related functionality in the future.

When you listen to music in Songbird you’ll have the option to see Flickr photos, YouTube videos, last.fm biographies, google news (and more) for the currently playing artist.

There is an album artwork feature that supports drag and drop of images, as well as, toggling between Now Playing and Currently Selected tracks.

There are some keyboard shortkuts for the power users amoung you.

Smart Playlists that automatically update based on criteria you set.

A new update mechanism ensures that all upgraded users have an option to install the latest Recommended Add-ons. You can turn this feature on/off in the Preferences.

You are able to make Songbird your own by choosing from dozens of different skins feathers.

On top of this, due to this being a Mozilla based product, there are a very generous amount of add-ons to kit out your music experience, tell you when the artist you are listening to are performing nearby and where to get tickets, listen to online radio and much, much more.

Seriously though. This has to be the best music player in the world. There are only a few things I miss from MS Media Player, but these features are coming in the not too distant future. Enjoy it. I know I really do!

This week the add-ons total has reached 1billion add-ons. Now correct me if I am wrong but that is a lot of add-ons.

To make things easier for new (and old) users to customize their browser Mozilla has created a super simple application to Fashion your Firefox.

One of the great things about the Fashion Your Firefox application is that it allows users to bundle a bunch of different add-ons together all at once.  In essence, it’s like having a shopping cart that you can use to select any add-on from the Fashion Your Fox application, “check-out” with just one click, and after a quick Firefox restart, have a whole new browser that’s made just for you!

So if you are intending to use this application then come back and give us a shout telling us what type of Firefox add-on you are. I know that I’m a bit of a “Digital Pack Rat” myself.

Remember the milk is the Internet’s most powerful tool for managing your day. The biggest reason is that rtm is able to integrate with many of your other online services, as well as run on your BlackBerry, iPhone or iPod touch.

Not only is rtm able to integrate with you online services and your portable device but it allows you to add tasks via email and even your normal mobile phone!

Now at this point I was totaly hooked but then I found out about the amazing feature that allows you to pinpoint the location of your tasks on a neat little map! I often look out for a small café or restaurant so that on the way back I can treat myself to something nice for completing all the little, and not so little, things I needed to do.

The last and most useful feature is the ability to share. Share, send and publish tasks and lists with your contacts or the world (if you really must). Remind your significant other to do their tasks. There is a down side to this though. Mother keeps sending me chores to do while she is at work. I think she forgets that I have work to do as well. Even if I do work from home.

Coming soon to a browser near you. Me, Myself and Max.

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Google

Over the last decade or so Google has be one of the largest of these inspiring companies with one of the biggest fan bases ever for an on-line based company. It all started when Google came out and was instantly so much better at its job as a search engine than any of its competitors, not only that but the fact that this engine was seen to be the smart, scrappy, youngster taking on the big boys.

When it arrived on the stock market it reinforced that radical image. The first line of its so-called “Owner’s Manual for Shareholders” read:

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

There was much talk at the time about Google giving the world access to information and great play was made of the company’s ethical stance, summed up with the motto “Don’t be evil.”

Over recent years Google has retained our affection by developing new tools for us all to use such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Earth to name but a few. But somehow I feel the love is no longer as it used to be, but more fading into the distance. Why?

Well that smart, scrappy, youngster has grown into a muscle-bound giant, which, in the eyes of some web developer pygmies, is now the big boy and a bit of a bully in the playground that is the world wild web. Constantly expanding, constantly taking others thunder with their “New Technology” looking to be more productive than anyone else – but radicaly falling into an advertizing monster with as much domination in some areas of the online market as Microsoft has over operating systems.

It may paint itself as a champion of open-source but, users of its “new kid on the block” were quick to ask questions about some scary terms and conditions, since amended by Google.

Google Chrome

Is Chrome just an attempt to push browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Oprea to the back of the line while Google take all the candy and dominance of yet another area of the world wild web? There is that concern, after all, Google is partnered with Mozilla so why make yet another competitor?

However, all of those happy, shiny, Googlers in their multi-coloured offices with the free muffins had better get used to one thing. The early passion of their users is fading. We’re now in a conventional, commercial relationship – and if someone else comes along offering something better, we could be going elsewhere. Fast.

I also hope to provide you with some useful tools that are often over looked or unheard of. Like what I add to Technoish? Then check out what I write when I have no boundries and head over to Brinkhusrt Design – Getting Personal.

Hope you enjoyed this post and keep your eyes out for my next article entitled Google World – a land of colour and fun.

And here are the statistics about the browser usage of our visitor of the second and third day after the Chrome’s release. Notice how close it is to IE’s precentage :)

Google Chrome Site Statistics

I guess Google Chrome is taking over casual internet users much faster than we orginally thought. Watch out IE here comes Chrome!

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In my previous post I tried to “feel” all the 3 browsers and then compare my impressions with some of the early benchmarks done by the dudes at lifehacker.com. I was right about some parts of the performance tests, but wrong about others – for instance I thought that Internet Explorer has a fastest script engine. Anyways I’ll try to keep this as short as possible.

I did the testing on average desktop machine with Windows XP Professional sp3: Asus M2N-X+, AMD Athlon 64×2 dual 4800+, 1Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce 8500 GT. Used CSS speed tests, javascript speed test and timer application for the speed performance, and Task Manager for the memory test. The browsers tested Mozzila Firefox 3.1b – Minefield, Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 and Google Chrome 0.2. All the settings on default. I averaged out of 5 results. Tried to be as objective as possible.

The cold start was a surprise, Internet Explorer 8 was the fastest to load. Another thing I noticed that IE 8 is a multiprocess browser too, ( I didn’t know that) same as Chrome. It prevents crashes to whole application. Warm Starts are pretty fast. Chrome wins here. Chrome also show its superiority in the CSS test. Draws way faster than both of its opponents. Javascript test show that Firefox handles scripts fastest. What surprised me is that Internet Explorer handled the script test unusually slow. I suspect the ActiveX controls but as I said previously the browsers were set to default.

memory overview

Here I saw multiprocessing in action. Two of the tabs crashed in Internet Explorer with youtube videos loading, but the whole application stayed intact, which is nice, neat and handy at the same time. In this category Firefox is the winner with its modest memory requirements.

. These new generation browsers, significantly faster, improved, unlike few versions ago, improving our experience are just gonna get better. Still only betas, we’re looking forward to final versions. I personally use all of them. Firefox for developing, IE for testing, Chrome for surfing. What browser do you stick with?

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For Windows Vista - C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome
For Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\\Local
Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

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